Mixed messages as defiant Nobu still serves up endangered tuna - but asks you not to eat it

Michelin-starred restaurant Nobu is inviting diners to eat tuna but warning them it is endangered.

The warning - which adds that customers should ask for an alternative - has been added to Nobu's menus after a long campaign by environmentalists concerned that the bluefin tuna is heading for extinction.

But bosses of the global Nobu brand have defied the campaigners' calls to actually stop selling its bluefin tuna dishes.

At risk: Bluefin tuna could die out in three years' time, say conservationists

The chain of Japanese-South American fusion restaurants has added a footnote to its menus and website saying: 'Bluefin tuna is an environmentally threatened species, please ask your server for an alternative.'

Nobu - one of the few major restaurants that continues to sell bluefin - still does not specifically state on its menus that its tuna is bluefin, despite a commitment to do so by one of the chain's backers.

Highly prized by sushi fans, bluefin tuna commands stratospherically high prices, particularly on the Japanese market, where one fish can sell for more than £60,000. Nobu's UK branches, in London's Park Lane and Berkeley Street, sell bluefin dishes costing up to ­£32 each.

But demand for bluefin tuna is such that stocks in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean have fallen dramatically in recent years.

Defiant: The Nobu restaurant in London's Berkeley Street, above, is among those still serving the endangered fish

WWF, the former World Wildlife Fund, estimates that breeding stocks could disappear in just three years' time.

The organisation has criticised Nobu's move, with senior fisheries policy officer Giles Bartlett reported as saying: 'They shouldn't sell endangered species. They should change their menu to incorporate a fish that's sustainable and not one that's critically endangered.'

Last year, Greenpeace investigators were told by Nobu serving staff in London that their tuna was not bluefin, but tests on samples smuggled out of the restaurants proved otherwise.

A new film about endangered fish species has Nobu's New York-based managing partner Richard Notar saying it is 'unacceptable' customers were not being told the truth.

He said he would like to take bluefin off the menu, but the move was being resisted by his Japanese chefs. The company is also exploring using bluefin farmed in Australia.

Mr Notar said that in future Nobu menus would distinguish between bluefin and less endangered species of tuna like yellowfin. This is now the case in its American outlets, although they do not carry the advisory footnote.

The restaurant's novel way of dealing with the issue features in documentary The End Of The Line, released next month. It is based on a book by environmental journalist Charles Clover, who has spent several years trying to persuade Nobu to speak about its policy on sustainability.

Among a range of tuna dishes it sells o-toro tuna sushi - the most prestigious cut of meat - for £8 for a single piece.

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Mixed messages as defiant Nobu still serves up endangered tuna - but asks you not to eat it